The invention relates to a method and process embodied in one or more computer software programs to record, store, and display discrete trial therapy data. Discrete trial therapy (or, the discrete trial method) was developed by Ivar Iovaas at the University of California at Los Angeles. The process of providing discrete trial therapy services may be summarized as follows: a person providing services (hereinafter referred to as a Tutor) will meet with a person receiving services (hereinafter referred to as Student). The Tutor may select a “curriculum area” (e.g., toys, letters, people, animals), a “target” associated with the selected curriculum area (e.g., if the curriculum area is “animals,” then possible targets may include: dog, cat, mouse, elephant), and a discriminative stimulus (Sd) that is relevant to the target (e.g., “point to the _.”, “where is the _?”, “show me the _.”). The Tutor then makes a statement (or asks a question) that combines the selected Sd and the target (e.g., “point to the mouse.”). Each time that a statement is made (or a question is posed) is typically referred to as a “trial.” A group of trials may be referred to as a “session.” The Tutor typically records a Student's response for each trial in the session. Tutors may vary the curriculum area, the target, and the Sd from session to session. The Tutor typically uses a paper-based form to record session and trial data, which may include: the Student's response to each trial, the date and approximate time of the session, the curriculum area, the target, the Sd, the Tutor's name, the Student's name, and any notes relevant to the session. Session data that is recorded on paper may be collected in a binder (or similar repository), and analyzed periodically.
Typically, discrete trial data is captured manually by Tutors, using pencil and paper. Pages of session data corresponding to an individual Student may be stored in binders, and aggregated data is typically heuristically derived from the raw data. Some data may be entered into a spreadsheet, but this effort is prone to error, and any quantitative results beyond basic arithmetic and statistics require sophisticated spreadsheet-programming techniques and knowledge.
The preferred embodiment seeks to obviate the inefficiencies and errors inherent in the manual recording of data by using a method that enables discrete data to be recorded directly into a database, whereupon it may be aggregated quickly and easily. The benefits to the proposed method are profound. Using a suitable user interface in the computer program, session data may be sorted by data, by curriculum area, by Tutor, by Student, and so on with a minimum of technical knowledge on the part of the user of the invention. Database queries may be filtered according to user-selected variables and displayed quickly and easily. Displayed results may be printed, or exported to a file. Weeks, months, and years of a Student's session data may be electronically archived with a few computer commands, helping to ensure compliance with any legal requirements to store Student data until a Student becomes a certain age.
There is an invention (U.S. Pat. No. 6,537,073, issued Mar. 25, 2003) that enables a use to deliver content to a learning disabled person, but the invention focuses on delivering content to a single user instead of enabling data recording for multiple Students. The inventor for this current application knows of no existing method, embodied in one or more computer software programs that enables a person or persons providing discrete trial therapy services to record, store, and display discrete trial data.